BORED……DON’T ADMIT IT                                                       

 

Entering my fourth week of social distancing and no end in sight.  I think I have got past the worse of it as I no longer seem to have endless days, I have adapted to being on my own with several phone calls daily from family and friends.  After two weeks of feeling abandoned I have settled into the routine of a long walk on the lonely Hike and Bike trail every morning and an evening sojourn round the block   This keeps the dog happy and me healthy.

 

As a kid I very soon learned never to express boredom.  Living with my grandma taught me that her philosophy was “the Devil finds work for idle hands” and woe betide any of the grandchildren in her care who moaned about being bored.

By the time I was four I could read and spent many hours doing this.  I had a library card at a very early age and was a regular visitor to that wonderful place of enchantment, where I could get the means of travel to magical worlds with talking animals, be with children who were capable of solving crimes and having marvellous adventures, fly with Peter Pan and Wendy and generally visit any part of the world I cared to go.  I worked my way through the entire children’s section before I was ten.

However, if I ever needed a different diversion and none was at hand I could whine and moan about my sad state.  It didn’t take me too long to learn that this was a mistake.

Gran was a great one for filling those boring hours and she did this in a very practical way.  I very soon learned that her idea of keeping me busy was to get out some old newspapers, some rags and the Brasso.  This was the cleaner that kept grandma’s brass knick knacks shining.  A trip through the home was made and gran collected all her brass ornaments and put them on newspapers on the kitchen table, I would then spend half an hour dabbing the polish onto the items with a rag.  By the time I had got them all treated, the cream had dried and then came the nasty job of polishing them all to a shine that satisfied gran.

This could take up to two hours of dirty, sweaty work then, as hot water was not to be wasted, I had to try and scrub myself clean in cold water and carbolic soap.  No amount of whining or complaining would deter gran, once she set a task, it was completed….or else!

Even worse than the brass cleaning, was polishing the banisters.  Gran’s staircase had a set of carved, wooden banister rails that went right up the steps and along the upstairs hallway.  I would be given a soft rag, usually a piece of an old nightie, smeared with Mansion polish.  This was a tin of creamy, wax like polish that everyone I knew used to polish their wooden surfaces.  The polish was smeared all round the railings then the fun job began.

I would be given a clean piece of cloth and taking hold of both ends I had to work my way up the back of each railing, transfer the rag to the front and work my way down.  The carved rail would take much back and forth action to get into every crevice of the carving.

A couple of hours of this forced labour and I was a filthy wreck and too tired for the devil to be interested in my idle hands.  My own children or my grandchildren think I am joking when I relate gran’s cure for boredom but anyone from my age and background would not bat an eyelid.  We were loved and cared for but never excused from hard labour, if it was required.  Our parents and guardians worked hard and we were brought up with the same work ethic.

Yes, it is very wearying to try and fill our days with nothing but leisure but what a hardship to have a comfortable home, a telephone, a television, a computer and my own mini-library of books.  Add to this a machine that makes a fresh cup of coffee on demand and it seems like I enjoy the life my grandma could only ever dream about. 

Keep safe.